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“And enough food for a dragon the size of a first-rate,” Riley fired back.
Staunton, nodding, seized on this avenue at once. “I think you ca
“And I am convinced Lenton should never have conceived of our whistling six months down the wind,” Granby said. “People do come and go overland; what about that fellow Marco Polo, and that nearly two centuries ago?”
“Yes, and what about the Fitch and Newbery expedition, after him,” Riley said. “Three dragons all lost in the mountains, in a five-day blizzard, through just such reckless behavior—”
“This man Tharkay, who brought the letter,” Laurence said to Staunton, interrupting an exchange which bade fair to end in hot words, Riley’s tone growing rather sharp and Granby’s pale skin flushing up with telltale color. “He came overland, did he not?”
“I hope you do not mean to take him for your model,” Staunton said. “One man can go where a group ca
“Oh, pray let us be gone at once,” said the inexpressibly valuable dragon, when Laurence had carried the question, still unresolved, back to him. “It sounds very exciting to me.” Temeraire was wide-awake now in the relative cool of the evening, and his tail was twitching back and forth with enthusiasm, producing moderate walls of sand to either side upon the beach, not much above the height of a man. “What kind of dragons will the eggs be? Will they breathe fire?”
“Lord, if they would only give us a Kazilik,” Granby said. “But I expect it will be ordinary middle-weights: these kinds of bargains are made to bring a little fresh blood into the lines.”
“How much more quickly would we be at home?” Temeraire asked, cocking his head sideways so he could focus one eye upon the maps, which Laurence had laid out over the sand. “Why, only see how far out of our way the sailing takes us, Laurence, and it is not as though I must have wind always, as the ship does: we will be home again before the end of summer,” an estimate as optimistic as it was unlikely, Temeraire not being able to judge the scale of the map so very well; but at least they would likely be in England again by late September, and that was an incentive almost powerful enough to overrule all caution.
“And yet I ca
“But it ca
“That you should face down an army to protect us I have no doubt,” Laurence said, “but a gale in the mountains even you ca
“So then the sooner we go, the better, for having an easy crossing of it,” Granby argued. “August will be better than October for avoiding blizzards.”
“And for being roasted alive in the desert instead,” Riley said.
Granby rounded on him. “I don’t mean to say,” he said, with a smoldering look in his eye that belied his words, “that there is anything old-womanish in all these objections—”
“For there is not, indeed,” Laurence broke in sharply. “You are quite right, Tom; the danger is not a question of blizzards in particular, but that we have not the first understanding of the difficulties particular to the journey. And that we must remedy, first, before we engage either to go or to wait.”
“If you offer the fellow money to guide you, of course he will say the road is safe,” Riley said. “And then just as likely leave you halfway to nowhere, with no recourse.”
Staunton also tried again to dissuade Laurence, when he came seeking Tharkay’s direction the next morning. “He occasionally brings us letters, and sometimes will do errands for the Company in India,” Staunton said. “His father was a gentleman, I believe a senior officer, and took some pains with his education; but still the man ca
“For my part, I should rather have a guide half-British than one who can scarcely make himself understood,” Granby said afterwards, as he and Laurence together picked their way along the backstreets of Macao; the late rains were still puddled in the gutters, a thin slick of green overlaid on the stagnating waste. “And if Tharkay were not so much a gypsy he wouldn’t be of any use to us; it is no good complaining about that.”
At length they found Tharkay’s temporary quarters: a wretched little two-story house in the Chinese quarter with a drooping roof, held up mostly by its neighbors to either side, all of them leaning against one another like drunken old men, with a landlord who scowled before leading them within, muttering.
Tharkay was sitting in the central court of the house, feeding the eagle gobbets of raw flesh from a dish; the fingers of his left hand were marked with white scars where the savage beak had cut him on previous feedings, and a few small scratches bled freely now, unheeded. “Yes, I came overland,” he said, to Laurence’s inquiry, “but I would not recommend you the same road, Captain; it is not a comfortable journey, when compared against sea travel.” He did not interrupt his task, but held up another strip of meat for the eagle, which snatched it out of his fingers, glaring at them furiously with the dangling bloody ends hanging from its beak as it swallowed.
It was difficult to know how to address him: neither a superior servant, nor a gentleman, nor a native, all his refinements of speech curiously placed against the scruff and tumble of his clothing and his disreputable surroundings; though perhaps he could have gotten no better accommodations, curious as his appearance was, and with the hostile eagle as his companion. He made no concessions, either, to his odd, in-between station; a certain degree of presumption almost in his ma